Readings

FIRST LESSON

The first lesson is from There’s a Spiritual Solution to Every Problem by Wayne W. Dyer

You can observe what appears to be hatred in the marketplace of the world in a myriad of forms—one race of people expressing their hatred by invading or mistreating other racial groups; some people controlling food supplies while others are left to starve; a steady diet of violence force-fed to others in the form of killing, fighting, verbal abuse, and attempts at cheating; laws passed that favor one group over another group that is hated by the majority in power. When the reins of power shift, revenge toward those who were the former haters then becomes the norm. Hatred seems to beget hatred.

Into this world you are thrust with a natural inclination to love. Most of the time when you encounter people projecting hatred toward you, you perceive yourself as having a problem. Hatred in the form of a disgruntled company employee who won’t listen and keeps you waiting endlessly; a legal action taken against you solely for the sake of obtaining some of your money; hate spewed by a power hungry authority browbeating you for his own pleasure. What appears to be real to you is their hatred.

The common belief of those who are hateful is a firm conviction that life does not love them. Hate is their response to feeling hated. It is uncommon for a person who feels loved to project hate. Keep in mind the important biblical reminder, “God is love.” Evil is in the mind of humankind. Any hate you encounter comes from the minds of people who feel disconnected from God and the flow of love energy that exists. When you buy into their hatreds you too are disconnected.

When you make the shift to sowing love in the circumstances of your life where you are encountering hate, something unique happens—first to yourself, and then to the energy field of hate which you are in. When you start to trust love and recognize that ultimately we will be one with that love, you make a huge impact on the low energy pattern of hate. Every time you observe anyone in the world demonstrating hate, know with complete certainty that this person feels hated. At the same time, know that this person is loved by God (since God is love). As a witness or a recipient of that hatred you are a spark of love. If you are able to sow love in response to hate (one of the most difficult things a human being can do) you will ultimately see hate become love. Then, you know with certainty that hate is only an error created by the mind of humankind.

SECOND LESSON

The second lesson is from the Gospel of Mark, Chapter 9 verses 33 through 37

Then they came to Capernaum; and when Jesus was in the house, he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest. Jesus sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Then he took a little child and put her among them; and taking her in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

This Week's Sermon

Date: October 4, 2009

Title:The Power of "You Lie"

Message Delivered By: Rev. Dr. Joe McMurray

This coming Tuesday is Election Day. Regardless of how you wish to vote, it is important that you exercise your right to do so. I know none of us always agree, but as my father used to say, “If you don’t vote, you don’t have any right to complain about how things are going” – or not going.

And I’ve never met anyone who wanted to relinquish their right to complain, so please exercise one of the benefits of our freedom and vote, even if you don’t think it’s particularly important. Because it is.

Speaking of elections, I’m reminded of the new pastor of a church in a small South Florida town who found himself in a very difficult position. You see, two different members of his board of directors from his church were running for mayor that fall. And knowing most of the people of the town went to that church, each man knew that winning the support of the Pastor was a big deal. The preacher, who had been in town only, say, eleven months, felt like he was walking on egg shells around these two individuals, who had gone out of their way to be nice to him.

One of them took him out to lunch or dinner at least once a week, and told him to order anything on the menu and bought expensive wine. And the other got him free passes to the town’s country club, where he could enjoy the pool and golf course and tennis courts at his leisure.

The Pastor was comforted knowing he could not endorse either a specific candidate because he was a Pastor. But still, he had to walk that fine line of impartiality, even though he knew he would end up voting for one or the other. So he used much caution to appear to be as impartial as he could. He tried to divide his time with them as equally as possible.

The problem, as it turns out, didn’t come so much from the candidates themselves, but from other congregants who were curious as to how the Pastor was going to vote. As he picked up the mail at the post office box one morning, one of his congregants, a church member who was actively campaigning for one of the candidates, asked, "So, Pastor, what do you think about the upcoming election?"

“We’re fortunate to have two excellent candidates running,” said the Pastor, noncommittally.

“Whom do you think has an edge? She inquired.

“Probably the one with the most support,” he replied.

“How do you expect it to come out?” she said in an exasperated tone.

“Seems like it’s going to be close,” the Pastor replied.

“What do you think is going to happen,” she asked.

“God only knows,” replied the Pastor, cautiously.

“Well, then tell me who you think is going to win?” pressed the congregant impatiently, as her face got more and more in the Pastor’s face.

"Well, I don’t know, and I'm praying about that," the pastor told her.

"Well, then tell me this: what are you praying about?" the partisan congregant wanted to know.

“Right now,” said the Pastor with a sigh, "I'm just thanking God we have a secret ballot."

I know I joke about this, but I wish all our candidates well, and I hope that whomever wins our elections will always do one thing: listen to the people who voted for you and to those who did not, and always do the right thing, no matter how much trouble it may bring.
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Will you pray with me? Loving God, we are so grateful for this place; for the many people who say ‘yes’ to you and ‘yes’ to us day after day to keep our programs and ministries running; and to the inspiration you give us to come up with new, innovative ideas on how to deliver your unconditional love to the world and to have fun doing it. Thank you, God for these and all your gifts. And may my words and all of our thoughts be filled with honor and praise to you. Amen.
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It’s October, and you should know I used to hate Halloween.

I mean, I loved it as a child, when we would dress up in costumes and go to the neighbors’ houses and to the houses of people we knew, and often to those we didn’t know. Sometimes we would dress up so well that people wouldn’t recognize us and they’d be so surprised when we took our mask off. It was great fun.

Of course, I was very young, then. These were the times before the dangerous Halloween pranks – the stories about the poison candy or the razor blades being put into candy apples. When all of that happened, it seemed to ruin things and the spirit of the holiday wasn’t quite the same.

When we were younger, instead of buying candy, my mom used to make popcorn balls with Kraft marshmallow cream and butter. You’d melt the marshmallow cream and the butter and poor it over popped popcorn and form it into balls – good stuff! Fattening, but good.

But when the more dangerous pranks began, it got to a point where parents couldn’t allow their children to accept anything “homemade” anymore that wasn’t completely sealed. Which was smart and safe, but a real shame.

Later, when I grew up past my teenage years and delved into college and beyond, Halloween changed even more dramatically for me still. I loved to make costumes and go to gatherings and parties and share in the holiday spirit—until I realized that there were people out there who had other things on their minds.

You see, in some situations, I began to realize that Halloween became an enabling holiday: Halloween enabled people to hide behind a mask that seemed to suddenly give them license to behave in ways they would never have considered behaving had they been unmasked.

I particularly found this to be the case in San Francisco. There was always a great party in the Castro District on Halloween. They would close off the street from Market up to 18th and from Collingwood over to Noe, about a 12-square-block area. In its heyday, it was a crazy, wild street party! There were few, if any boundaries, with regard to costume, design and innovation. Everything from feathers to leather, lace to lashes, and colors and creativity you’ve never seen before.
There was a wonderful Evita costume, where a guy dressed as Evita Peron walked around with his arms up, and a podium with microphones attached to his waist. It was hilarious.

Most of the crowd was in costume, and then there would be a few of the gawkers who came to watch the queers dress up and do it right. And a few years later, the teens would come from outside San Francisco to drink beer, and to laugh and taunt the revelers. Then the teens grew to be young men and would come with sticks and baseball bats in case anybody got the wrong idea about what they were there for.

And then they started coming in costume to hide their knives and their behaviors. They looked just like the regular crowd. And then the guns came into play, and people started to stay away. It wasn’t fun anymore. It wasn’t worth the risk. It wasn’t worth taking a chance.

Our culture has also changed dramatically because of the internet. The internet has become the new mask. People can hide behind any persona they wish. They can totally misrepresent themselves in fun, and can also do so with risky and sometimes dangerous and diabolical motives. You can log on and become anyone you want to be.

But there’s something even more frightening behind this phenomenon. In many cases, we are finding that the masks are being worn every day, and that the internet persona, previously hidden in real life, is suddenly known as the real person.

Look at the troubled students responsible for the Columbine massacre, whose real personas were recorded for everyone to see; yet they remained hidden behind the everyday mask of hurt, unpopularity, depression, and never feeling a part of and never fitting in.

Fast forward now to news of a Facebook Poll that asked whether or not President Obama should be killed. Seriously. And it took the Department of Homeland Security and the Secret Service days before they paid attention to this and had the poll investigated and removed. The government can listen in on our private phone calls without a court order and thumb their noses at our civil rights, but it takes them days to take these things seriously. For those of us who witnessed the Kennedy assassination on film hundreds of times over the years, this is not funny.

And now, something more is happening. And it does matter, because deep-seated racism exists that has never been addressed has a good deal to do with what’s going on in our country. But the level of incivility and name-calling and propaganda leveled against others because you disagree with the issues is out of control.

Take Representative Joe Wilson of South Carolina’s outrageous display, calling President Obama a liar as he addressed a joint session of Congress and the nation on one of the most important issues of the day – health care. This was only one in a string of these episodes that keep coming and coming that are being encouraged by one of the most right wing media organizations ever to exist, and from emboldened politicians who are raking in money because of the popularity of their in-your-face disrespect.

So we are witnessing yet another transition. First, the innocent mask which hid nothing more than our childhood hero fantasies, or perhaps our latent homosexual tendencies. Then the facial mask emboldened some to employ behaviors they would not have the courage to display without the safety of cover.

The internet then became a huge mask, again allowing us to become our serious fantasy character, often an unhealthy one, inviting us to live more dangerously and dishonestly. And in that, we uncovered the fact that our daily lives are often what is masked, and that our real selves have new life in the electronic age.

And now, unencumbered by even the slightest sense of shame, some have decided that no mask is necessary. Somebody decided that the bully attitude, the steamrolling of America is a popular and acceptable way to engage in human relationships, to discover our truths, and to better humanity.

This is more than bullying or steamrolling. These attitudes seem to be based on hatred. Wayne Dyer speaks of hatred as a manifestation that occurs in the absence of love. He actually describes what so many believe is a strength – screaming, shouting, bullying, name-calling – as a weakness. Rudeness, inappropriate language and disrespectful behavior are underlying symptoms of hatred; and hatred means, according to Dyer, that those who bear such hatred are disconnected from God.

Something is definitely happening in our world. Something is changing, and not for the better. Not that there hasn’t been rancor or heated argument before. Not that there haven’t been insults and prejudice spoken aloud before. We’ve seen this over the decades of our lives. Political campaigns have traditionally displayed highly negative advertising. Almost all of us have experienced bigotry, prejudice or homophobia in one form or another. But we’ve not seen things deteriorate to such a degree where blatant lies and distortions, as well as bigotry and racism are perpetrated in a personal way to undermine others.

What is this all about? Where does this unrest come from?

Part of it, I believe, stems from the loss of trust.

Some people reached a point where they didn’t feel they could trust anybody anymore, or so it seemed. You couldn’t trust strangers not to poison your Halloween candy. You couldn’t trust your friends to tell you the truth. You couldn’t trust your partner or spouse to remain committed to your relationship. You couldn’t trust the clergy or the teachers with your children. You couldn’t trust your employer not to take advantage of your hard work and loyalty to the company.

You couldn’t trust the post office to get your packages and letters to their destinations on time. You couldn’t trust your bank to make the right decisions about your investments and your savings, if you were lucky enough to have them. You couldn’t trust your insurance company to provide the treatments that you needed to stay healthy instead of making obscene profits off of your illness by denying you the coverage and medications you needed.

You couldn’t trust the politicians to do the right thing for the people they served rather than for the corporations and the wealthy and for themselves. You couldn’t trust your government or other governments to promote and pursue plans of peace for the world and for the safety of the environment, the air we breath, the water we drink and the food we eat.

You couldn’t trust because you had reasons not to. And some became disenfranchised and angry. And they didn’t know what to do with their anger and so they misplaced it in collective anger at the world, at government, at their neighbors and co-workers, at people they felt benefitted from their losses. But the truth is we are all to blame. We are to blame because we forgot: “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.”

Part of the remedy, according to Wayne Dyer, is to love the haters. He’s right there. It is the responsibility of all of us, especially those of us who emulate the Christian life, to love everyone: we may not like everyone, but it is our duty to love everyone and all the baggage that comes with them; just as we expect them to love us.

But here’s where it gets dicey: because those who hate also have a duty. Those who hate also have to take responsibility for what their hatred sows in the world. Many of these who express their anger to such unacceptable levels actually claim to be good Christians, and yet they refuse to live by the precepts upon which Christianity was founded: “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.”

I received an email today about a group, one of many that exist, called “the Liberty Council, who has a program where you can adopt a liberal and pray for their death. This is serious stuff. At some point, we all may need to grab hold of a sister or brother for a good shake and bake and ask the question: “What in God’s name are you doing?” And if we’re really in tune with the God of love, we will have the courage to shake ourselves up a bit and ask ourselves the same question, “What in God’s name am I doing?”

I pray every day that civility and respectful discourse returns to our way of life. That when we talk to others, we can respect them. That when we disagree, we can calmly discuss our differences. And that there will be truthtelling on every side of the debate. Don’t think that our doing that here and now will have no impact on others. It cannot help but have an impact—a rippling effect that can change the world.

Two guys in a garage revolutionized the world by creating the internet. A handful of people at MCC Key West have every bit as much creativity to do the same.

May we continue to follow where God is leading. Amen.